How predictable to write about love in the month of February, but I just could not resist. This time, though, I thought it woud be interesting to investigate what people think the qualities are in others, which causes them to fall in love. I am not talking about physical attraction, because this is usually the first queue that calls us to action, but, rather, what is it about someone which keeps us coming back for more? Which keeps the object of our affection in the forefront of our mind? Which places them in our heart and soul so that they are our first thought upon awakening and our last thought before retiring? I put out a Facebook feeler but got very scant feedback, but those who did reply were very eloquent. I emailed some special friends for their input, and personally interviewed others. Originally, I was looking to see if men were looking for different qualities than were women, and to see if there was a common trend, but I did not gather nearly enough data to flesh that out. Perhaps next year. And so- I would like to share with you the common and uncommon threads of their contributions. Because I am lazy, I am not going to attempt to prioritize or catagorize my findings, but rather pour them out onto this page for your enjoyment.

COMMITTMENT

COMPLEMENTING AND BALANCING EACH OTHER

MUTUAL ADMIRATION

RESPECT

FAMILIARITY

ACCEPTANCE

SHARED EXPERIENCES

OPEN COMMUNICATION

SENSE OF HUMOR

PHYSICAL ATTRACTION

SUPPORT

AVAILABILITY

WILLINGNESS TO WORK TOGETHER AS A TEAM

APPRECIATION

GENEROSITY

INTELLIGENCE

SHARED INTERESTS

BEING INTERESTING AND INTERESTED

COMPASSION

EMPATHY

CREATIVITY

WILLING TO PUT IN EFFORT TO REACH A COMMON GOAL

DESIRING THE OTHER

FEELING DESIRED BY THE OTHER.

FEELING COMPLETE WHEN IN THEIR PRESENCE

BEING ABLE TO LEARN FROM THEM

BEING ABLE TO TEACH THEM WHAT YOU KNOW

TRUSTING THEM WITH YOUR SECRETS

WANTING TO PROTECT THEM

FEELING PROTECTED WHEN YOU ARE WITH THEM

MUTUAL DEPENDENCE

MUTUAL INDEPENDENCE

PASSION

CURIOSITY

CONTENTMENT

CARING

TRUST

LOYALTY

YOU ARE MORE INTERESTED IN WHAT YOU CAN DO TO PLEASE THEM THAN IN WHAT THEY CAN DO TO PLEASE YOU.

I am sure that there are many that I missed, but I think this is a pretty good place to begin. And now I will wax poetic. ( I just love a good platiude! ) To me love is akin to the feeling when putting cold hands into warm water. Enveloping. Accepting. Pleasing. Memorable. Once you have experienced it, your life is forever changed. It is that electrical feeling of mutual understanding and communing. Where you feel that your truth is understood and that you understand your mate. The feeling of never being bored- just being next to your love is enough- no matter where you are. I believe this force is truly what makes the world go round!

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

WRITE A LOVE LETTER

SEND SOME FLOWERS

BAKE A CAKE

VISIT A FRIEND

DRAW A PICTURE

GO FOR A WALK

READ SOME POETRY

WATCH A ROMANTIC MOVIE

DRINK WINE

SHARE A MEAL

BE GRATEFUL TO BE COGNIZANT OF THIS HUMAN GIFT WE CAN EXPERIENCE.

Recipe

BBC- Barbeque Bacon Chicken- Easy cheesy weeknight supper

Ingredients:

2 pounds chicken tenders ( I use Trader Joe's Bag in the freezer )

6 slices thick cut bacon cut into one inch squares

1/2 cup of your favorite barbeque sauce

2 cups shredded cheddar

Preheat the oven to 350º In a large frying pan, place the bacon and chicken and fry about 15 minutes until cooked most of the way through. Place in a baking dish. drizzle barbeque sauce on top of meat, then top with shredded cheese. Bake 30 minutes. I served it with leftover mashed potatoes. Very tasty and filling.

Guided Meditation:

(Jewel's Valentine to you!)

Find a lovely place in nature... your back yard, your front yard, a park, a garden etc.

Sit and settle. Look around and just take in the beauty and miracle of nature. Try not to think about anything else.

Take a deep breath all the way down to your toes, and let it out slowly with a big outward sigh, letting all of your stress go with it. Repeat as needed.

Take some time to appreciate the design of all of the natural life forms. The symmetry of the leaves and flowers. And the asymmetry- the way the sun rays drip through the leaves of the trees and the wending branches.

Notice how the sun feels on your skin, and also the gentle breeze- if you are fortunate to experience warm sun and gentle breezes in February, as I am. You can feel these sensations but you cannot see them. Acknowledge that there is so much more to life than what can be seen.

Close your eyes and just listen to the sounds around you. I like to sit next to running water. Or even a ticking clock if you must remain inside.

If your thoughts wander off to laundry land or what's for dinner diversion, just let the thought pass and come back to the listening moment.

Sometimes I like to role play that I am a tree or a rock, content with my existence. Nothing expected of me but to just be.

I am the rock in the stream, slowly changing as the water flows over me.

I am the tree in the garden, grounded by my roots. Reaching for the stars. Offering shelter and shade and nourishment while expecting nothing in return.

Externally, I change with the seasons but my core does not change. I observe all that happens around me, but I do not need to go anywhere or to seek anything. All that I need comes to me naturally.

Nothing is expected. I am just as I need to be. I expect nothing- all is just as it should be. There is beauty and balance.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhh

Love Quotes:

"When love is not madness, it is not love."
Pedro Calderon de la Barca

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"Oh, if it be to choose and call thee mine, love, thou art every day my Valentine!"
Thomas Hood

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"Many are the starrs I see, but in my eye no starr like thee."
English phrase on poesy rings

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"Loving is not just looking at each other, it's looking in the same direction."
Antoine de Saint-Expuery, Wind, Sand, and Stars, 1939

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"Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love."
Albert Einstein

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"I don't understand why Cupid was chosen to represent Valentine's Day. When I think about romance, the last thing on my mind is a short, chubby toddler coming at me with a weapon."
Unknown

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"For you see, each day I love you more
Today more than yesterday and less than tomorrow."
Rosemonde Gerard

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"Love is a symbol of eternity. It wipes out all sense of time, destroying all memory of a beginning and all fear of an end."
Unknown

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"Love - a wildly misunderstood although highly desirable malfunction of the heart which weakens the brain, causes eyes to sparkle, cheeks to glow, blood pressure to rise, and the lips to pucker."
Unknown

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"Trip over love, you can get up. Fall in love and you fall forever."
Unknown

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"Anyone can catch your eye, but it takes someone special to catch your heart."
Unknown

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"A hundred hearts would be too few
To carry all my love for you."
Unknown

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"You have to walk carefully in the beginning of love; the running across fields into your lover's arms can only come later when you're sure they won't laugh if you
trip."
Jonathan Carroll "Outside The Dog Museum"

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"We are all a little weird and life's a little weird, and when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall in mutual weirdness and call it love."
Unknown

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"Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs."
William Shakespeare

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"kisses are a better fate than wisdom."
e.e. cummings

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"If love is blind, why is lingerie so popular?"
Unknown

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"Who, being loved, is poor?"
Oscar Wilde

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"In melody divine,
My heart it beats to rapturous love,
I long to call you mine."
Unknown

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"Grow old with me! The best is yet to be."
Robert Browning

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"Without love, what are we worth? Eighty-nine cents! Eighty-nine cents worth of chemicals walking around lonely."
Hawkeye, from M*A*S*H

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"The hours I spend with you I look upon as sort of a perfumed garden, a dim twilight, and a fountain singing to it. You and you alone make me feel that I am alive. Other men it is said have seen angels, but I have seen thee and thou art enough."
George Moore

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"Love is the magician that pulls man out of his own hat."
Ben Hecht

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"Time is too slow for those who wait, too swift for those who fear, too long for those who grieve, too short for those who rejoice, but for those who love, time is eternity."
Henry Van Dyke

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"A bell is no bell 'til you ring it,
A song is no song 'til you sing it,
And love in your heart
Wasn't put there to stay -
Love isn't love
'Til you give it away."
Oscar Hammerstein, "You Are Sixteen" from the film Sound of Music

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"I've fallen in love many times...always with you."
Unknown

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"Love is a game that two can play and both win."
Eva Gabor

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"We don't believe in rheumatism and true love until after the first attack."
Marie Ebner Von Eschenback, Aporism

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"Love, and a cough, cannot be hid."
George Herbert in Jacula Prudentum 1651

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"I love thee - I love thee,
'Tis all that I can say
It is my vision in the night,
My dreaming in the day."
Thomas Hood

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"The most beautiful view is the one I share with you."
Unknown

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"You don't marry someone you can live with - you marry the person who you cannot live without."
Unknown

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"A kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature to stop speech when words become superfluous."
Ingrid Bergman

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"True love is like ghosts, which everybody talks about and few have seen."
La Rochefoucauld

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"Falling in love is so hard on the knees."
Aerosmith

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"Love is a canvas furnished by Nature and embroidered by imagination."
Voltaire

"Love is the silent saying and saying of a single name."
Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960

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"You know when you have found your prince because you not only have a smile on your face but in your heart as well."
Unknown

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"Love puts the fun in together, the sad in apart, and the joy in a heart."
Unknown

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"Love is like dew that falls on both nettles and lilies."
Swedish Proverb

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"How did it happen that their lips came together? How does it happen that birds sing, that snow melts, that the rose unfolds, that the dawn whitens behind the stark shapes of trees on the quivering summit of the hill? A kiss, an all was said."
Victor Hugo

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"Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired."
Robert Frost